Ryan Finn: Chasing And Making History

New Orleans sailor Ryan Finn is a proud American. So it didn't sit right with him that European sailors owned all the most significant ocean sailing records. "I've been following singlehanded racing for so long, and it's pretty much all French at this point," says the 44-year-old, describing how most of todays sailing records were set with corporate-backed, multi-million dollar, supersized foiling trimarans in countries where sailing is passionately followed by the public.

Finn had become intrigued by the idea of rounding Cape Horn on the 14,000-mile New York to San Francisco "Gold Rush" route sailed by the fabled merchant clipper ships of the 19th century. He had little chance of raising funding for such a project from an American company, so he thought outside the box. What began as a solo round-the-world east-to-west (against the prevailing wind and current) voyage on a boat better designed for beating upwind than traditional multihulls, evolved into New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn. That "better boat" for the job would be a proa, a design dating back thousands of years, developed by early South Pacific mariners who explored thousands of miles across the open Pacific Ocean.

But, A Proa?

While a catamaran has twin hulls, the proa has one double-ended hull (a pointy bow on each end), and a second, smaller and narrower ama (similar to an outrigger), which serves as a stabilizer. Unlike sailboats, proas must keep the ama to windward, so there's no tacking or jibing. Instead, proas "shunt" to change course, which is essentially steering away from the wind, releasing the main sheet that's on a rotating mast, changing direction (there's a rudder on each side), resheeting, and steering to windward again. They're light, fast, relatively cheap, and easy to build.

Finn launched a shoestring budget campaign, raising $10,000 through a GoFundMe fundraiser, to attempt a record for a nonstop, solo sail from New York to San Francisco via Cape Horn — on the smallest boat to ever attempt this route. When no record exists, you get to set the parameters. The only propulsion would come from wind and current — no engine. Finn consulted with noted multihull designers Russell Brown and Paul Beiker on building a proa up to the task, but ended up buying Brown's own 36-foot plywood kit boat, Jzerro, which Brown had already sailed across the Pacific. The campaign was christened "2 Oceans — 1 Rock."

Finn spent months prepping, modifying the boat for solo sailing, and sea trialing on his home waters, including a shakedown cruise to Havana to deliver humanitarian aid. In late 2021, he sailed north to New York City for the January 21 start. By March 2022, his years-long, moment-in-the-making project found him alone, wet, and cold aboard Jzerro, anchored in a cove about 75 miles northwest of Chile's fabled Cape Horn at the southern tip of South America. This is where the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean currents collide, creating extreme low-pressure systems that churn up frequent, unpredictable squalls and gusts along with high winds and massive waves. Was Finn's proa up to the task of transiting a passage that has claimed more than 800 larger ships?

"I had no idea if I could sail around Cape Horn," he says matter-of-factly a few days after the voyage. "I figured I'd get down there and put my toe in, and if I felt safe I'd make a move. If not, I'd sail back. I have parents and a family, and that's just not a way to behave."

How We Got Here

Finn grew up sailing on the Mississippi Sound and Lake Pontchartrain on his parents' cruising boats — first a Cape Dory 28, then a Cape Dory 36. Then his dad bought a little racing boat, "and that's really when I started to feel it — getting that feedback from the sailboat."

Then life forced him to tack away from his racing interests. In 1998, at 19, he was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma. While his active sailing life was on hold during treatments and recovery, he began to follow a 1998 round-the-world singlehanded yacht race, Around Alone.

"Being able to follow a race on the internet was new, and I became pretty obsessed," Finn says. "And I was like, 'I want to do something!'" As he recovered, he taught himself celestial navigation, pondered making a small journey of his own, and, to express his gratitude for today's life-saving treatment, he joined the Leukemia Cup Regatta founded by fellow sailor and cancer survivor Gary Jobson.

Eventually, strength regained, he became a professional delivery captain and competitive bluewater sailor. He crewed and doublehanded racing monohulls from 21 to 60 feet, logging more than 100,000 nautical miles, along with multiple Trans-Atlantic and Trans-Pacific crossings. In 2016, he sailed from Los Angeles to the Panama Canal in 18 days on a proa. "Doublehanded and crewed racing can be a lot of fun with the right people," Finn says. "Solo sailing is a lot more challenging and a lot harder on your psyche."

'Round the Horn

Last March, waiting for a weather window in Puerto Español, a large bay in the Beagle Channel, 75 miles north of Cape Horn, to make his move to round the Horn, he determined that the storm fronts were coming in too fast to completely rely on forecasts from Commanders' Weather. He observed top winds were higher than forecast, and light air lighter than forecast, "So, I was either totally becalmed or had a storm jib up.

"The problem with Cape Horn is that the bad weather doesn't end until you're a couple hundred miles north into the ocean," Finn says. "So I was looking for the least violent storm I could see forecast for getting around the southwest corner of Chile." When he received a forecast of 30-plus knot winds, he assumed gusts in the 40s, but not 50s. "The opportunity arose, and I was like, 'All right. I'm going for it.'"

Finn sailed through a "little" two-day, 45-knot gale to pass Cape Horn, then used the next cold front's 30-plus-knot winds and the clockwise circulation in the Southern Hemisphere to slingshot north on the western shore. "There was barely a day between storms," he says. Soon, he was logging 300-mile days sailing north.

Mission Accomplished

After 93 days at sea, Finn sailed Jzerro under the Golden Gate Bridge and into San Francisco Harbor on April 18, having created the record for a nonstop, solo sail from New York to San Francisco around Cape Horn on the smallest boat to ever attempt this route.

"I listened to all my books on tape, read all three books on board — one of them twice — listened to all the music I had, ate all the snacks I had." Ready to come home, Finn was greeted with a hero's welcome at the docks of the Richmond Yacht Club, where he also thanked the Miramar Yacht Club in Brooklyn, New York, for opening its facilities to him to prep for the passage.

Now "an American sailor of note," Finn is thinking about his next move — maybe another attempt at a record — as he goes back to professional yacht deliveries, a job with nice perks, such as when his girlfriend, Jennifer, joins him, and they can cruise a new area.